End the Double Standard

Judith Plaskow and Martha Ackelsberg

In September 2021, DOCCS (The New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision) restarted the Family Reunification Program that had been suspended for a year and half. This meant that, after a long period of painful separation, some family members were once again able to spend time with their incarcerated loved ones for a weekend in a home-like setting. This was certainly good news, but the catch was that everyone involved had to be vaccinated. While on the surface, this might sound like a sensible precaution, in reality, it was just the latest example of DOCCS’s double standards applied in ways that are harsh, punitive, and ultimately pointless. 

Why a vaccine mandate for a select group of incarcerated people and family members and not for everyone, including corrections officers (COs) and other DOCCS staff members? Why not give family members the same options that COs have to be tested, if they cannot be vaccinated for medical or religious reasons? 

Staff members go in and out of the prisons daily and are in intimate contact with those in their charge. When COVID numbers were spiking in towns with prisons, no special precautions were expected of COs, and mask rules were enforced laxly, if at all. As the New York Times reported in July 2021, no one really knows how many incarcerated people have been ill with or died of COVID. The prisons (including those in New York State) never bothered to test and isolate incarcerated people who were ill, and seemingly did not care enough to track the virus. This lack of attention included the long periods when the prisons were shut down and no visitors entered.

Once family visits were permitted from August through December 2020 and again beginning in June 2021, family members have been required to socially distance from their loved ones and have not been permitted even brief physical contact. Anyone who holds hands or is touched by a child who hasn’t seen a parent for months risks receiving a disciplinary ticket or having their visits discontinued altogether. But visitors sitting six feet from spouses, children, or parents regularly see guards not wearing masks and patting down their incarcerated family members without changing gloves or using hand sanitizer between searches. It goes without saying that COs do not socially distance.

Throughout the pandemic, DOCCS failed to institute and enforce safety procedures for incarcerated people and COs. Indeed, it showed no interest in doing so. This makes clear that the purpose of requiring vaccination as a prerequisite for FRPs is not about safety. It is about making life as difficult and miserable as possible for both incarcerated people and family members. This is a project, alas, at which DOCCs excels.